Names, a Mythos flash fiction by Jean M. Hodges

He took the first letter of his old name, same syllables, and placed a ‘ja’ sound smack dab in the middle, and he was sure to make it fit.

Ra-jah. It was a nice enough name for a nice enough person.

He was Raj now for ten years, and he had no plans of changing that.

He already got it all changed on paper, anyway.

*

Yvonna was a name Taylor got from a magazine. She liked the way the syllables rose and fell and on the page, and she promised herself that whatever child she had, she’d name them “Yvonna”, and that’s what she did.

But she ended up with twins, and she ended naming one Yvonna, and the other Colombe, after the white dove that came on her windowpane. She thought the twins liked their names fine. They fit snug together.

“Von” and “Dove” were cute, too. Taylor let her boys keep those around as nicknames. She’d had a couple herself growing up, though they weren’t always as cute.

*

Myrina was named after her fleeting feet, half because of the way she bounced around in her mother’s belly during her pregnancy, half because her mother claimed that the way her feet moved was the most memorable thing about her. A goddess-mother tended to remember her children in bursts, after all. And beauty goddess did her best remember to forget her ugliest children.

But her feet came out fine, and from what she heard about her progeny on Earth, she was a fair dancer and brilliant runner. Good.

She wished that she just washed her away like she’s done before with so many others. Like she did with her father. But she was an artist, and a beauty goddess never gives up on a project.

She supposed the unfortunate brat deserved a name, so she gave her one-